The Triumph of the Left Hemisphere (i) cobwebbed her face spun the spell of lechery a garden of forked paths day and night tremble on the morning and evening star morning brings the gull’s squall surreal beyond the curtained windows the trees are ivy clad in a laurel bay like ship mast & rigging sunk to the bottom of the sea a filament of silver stabs the heart a slumbering breast cloud blooded in night’s music on no breath of breeze & flesh on flame trembles beneath naked branches churlish fetching as though milk maids were wenching like little red riding hoods nor no kiss can seal our wound to heal not her him, him her not I nor mine Godlike creation must be seen as producing monsters in the gilt mirror of crooked butterflies where paper boats float with gondeliers beneath its arches and children drown in innocence of the first reflected face new ice age melts into soft ultra violet great maws devouring fleece ascend the statues of the sky towards melting blue a sky in chains Atlantic winds mast banners wave musk of weed overgrown graves paper castles on glass tables doll house tombs golden curls & dimples from ghost houses screams the jackal down the long white hall down the long white mall city of bleach close to the wind's white corners ballerina in a champagne glass cherry lips sparkling eyes golden hair delicate toes in bubbling foam until the last sips disappear in ripples a pink & white cloud mattress washed to pillows of bleached stone crepe clouds plume a three cornered hat pistols bloom back roses The Triumph of the Left Hemisphere (ii) the first line on the page thought to escape its life sentence like an errant angel falling into the breach a heavenly ape descended & disappeared into the waters transfixed the statue wears the same mask as the crowd transfixed heaven & hell are on the spin of a coin blue whales' melodies turned to shrieks are the ocean's voice & the iceman cometh to explain the glory of a name by which he would be forgotten write thin rice words to the roll of rice drums give alms to blindness papyrus on a brain stem in a ventilation shaft rivers of red ink we scratch fears of the trembling vertebrate the long field shrew fleeing the hill to frozen waste rice burning the paper sky small bones in the stubble frail nib at the edge forlorn the streets we drift we drift on waste on waste no fiesta for the poet no poem for the feast walk down walk down the western lane take heed the locusts come take heed the rice fields are burning on west on west as string tautens bow stretches arrow pivots arcs the long day crane drops its breaking neck everyone imprisons in the telescope a bleached pine branch floats its sodden joint wrenched first came fresh in sweet pods & green mush splitting on black lips black omnipotent tongue heart’s red blood trickling to feed gorilla sky rains cockroaches singing in the rain all the milk white spilt heaven coquette ruffles & coiffed wigette wrought in cream meringue ostrich plumes & the newsman comes on measure of all things who rose from the glaciers first dialectician of interlocution to a third person in hypothetical argumentation of an imaginary plot fallen man in a museum in narrow straights in the gallery on the knoll moulds without holds different helmets in the battle black out at the shoot out banquets in display of poison bouquets thaws to time's articulated perception a line with no other representation but its manifold variation the mirror is all fur through trees convoluted branches whose littered scales spangle down wind their voices The Triumph of the Left Hemisphere (iii) mother of god in the death pen she's dancing on a string a marionette at the gallows she sings as she swings one big world yes on everbody’s lips her mouth stains the mirror with a kiss after the eightfold city of light the morning hymn on high where the dragon fly pays homage to the lotus to fame with Mozart in another room from another room with another name on the radio made in china drift like a broken antler in the soft silt quick on the swivel still unslacking raging silent till torn aloft close your eyes on your borders for now it’s safe to dream & awake from a parallel dream of unknown separation where you reach out before bandaged banisters spiral as a monstrous thorax throttled on each gargantuan gargoyle floor a white electric cell stormed in the head of a whale that flounders crashes onto the street of harlot shouts to become a reed at dawn kept by the river of day & night kept by the sea in a window where the raven shrieks dressed like a black flamenco & every one spills in the shapeless sky shedding rags in pirouettes dark shards piercing the sunset in proportion to gravitation yet they whispered she knew not she only her beloved called on lonely raven ridges still her icy wails flail on bitter winds not freedom from your rags raised to riches by the coolies amongst those dark satanic mills a shadow slithers crankily down funicular stairs onto trap door landings & narrow long doors through high thin halls like a crooked shank pin out in black satin gold buckles on Nantacas seven seas Rip Van Winkle’s away to hoods on the wharves manacled bicycles in interminable rows implore the shore’s deserted canals a town’s tier walls stained in moss fungi lichen grime belies their fragrance drain pipes in rainwild weed corners dandelion leaf red bramble in black warts rain runs as blood into shadows its speechless phantoms amazed after so long still misunderstood in shadowy strands thin bands like the oneness of ant waves or piranhas long gone dance in the womb of incubation a well of gravity that spawns the ocean’s unleashed shoal still trembling from the deeps where you hover in suspense
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times ; at Artvilla.com his publications include
All the Babble of the Souk , Cartoon Molecules and Next Arrivals, collected poems, & Moon selected Audio Textual Poems available at Amazon.com as well as translation of Guadalupe Grande´s La llave de niebla, as Key of Mist and the recently published Tesserae , a translation of Carmen Crespo´s Teselas.
You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)